As a teenager, Gary Barlow imagined that writing a million love songs was the perfect expression of how boundless his love could be. In 2011 his compliment works less well – on current evidence it would be about a morning's work.

Last week Matt Cardle released a Barlow composition called Run For Your Life. Next month controversial Britain's Got Talent mini-man Ronan Parke's album will also include a new Barlow tune (Stronger Than I Am), and Westlife's next single, Lighthouse, is yet another new song from the Barlow catalogue. Impressive stuff, particularly as Take That's last album is just 11 months old, and an extra eight-song bonus album came out in May. But there's more: having helmed (and looked very serious in the video for) this year's Children in Need single, Barlow will also give yet another brand new song to the next X Factor winner.

"How does he do it?" is a fair question and, based on that Matt Cardle single, "by not always exercising rigorous quality control" seems like a suitable answer. It's certainly true that the quality of the songs he has donated to those less fortunate has varied in quality almost as wildly as that of the artists themselves. (In recent years he has also provided songs for, among others, John Barrowman and Peter Kay's comedy creation Geraldine McQueen.)

Perhaps during his wilderness years Barlow behaved as if nothing was wrong, like the sacked stockbroker who leaves for work each morning then spends his day on a park bench next to an empty briefcase. The idea of Barlow diligently penning an album's worth of new material in time for non-release every Christmas for eight years would certainly explain the song mountain being slowly dismantled in 2011.

But the crucial point was Simon Cowell deciding, with the arrival of X Factor USA, to go on holiday and leave Barlow not just babysitting Louis Walsh, but with the keys to the pop kingdom. To most pop stars this would signify party time. Gary "sensibleface" Barlow, remembering those years spent reading Take a Break on the park bench, knew this was his chance to make himself indispensable, and cast himself as the "Simon Cowell it's OK to like", even though he's still a very big Tory supporter.

After the X Factor winner's single, the Children in Need tune and all the rest, I'm actually warming to the idea of Barlow as pop laureate. It makes sense for there to be an inspirational Barlow-ballad for every occasion, whether it's a Eurovision song contest that needs winning, a royal couple requiring a first dance or a World Cup squad demanding an anthem. It's just amazing that the 2012 Olympics have so far escaped a Barlow-penned allstar singalong. "Team GB" has a bit of a ring to it, don't you think?

• This article was amended on 17 October 2011. The title of the Matt Cardle song was originally given as Stronger than I. This has been corrected.